Recasting the Classics

I’m going to have to think about your unique criterea for a little bit. Until then, here is something to think about:

In the distant past, on the old boards there were some similar - but not the same – kind of challenges. At least 12-15 years ago we had a regular on the Classic Board who would ask “What if some modern films had actually been made during the period in which it was set. For example, what if “Gosford Park” (2001) had been made in 1932, the year of its setting? Here was my response:

Upstairs
Dame May Whitty as Constance, Countess of Trentham (Maggie Smith)
Lionel Barrymore as Sir William McCordle (Michael Gambon)
Norma Shearer as Lady Sylvia McCordle (Kristin Scott Thomas)
Reginald Owen as Raymond, Baron Stockbridge (Charles Dance)
Ivor Norvello as Himself (Jeremy Northham)
Fredric March as Morris Weissman (Bob Balaban)
Ray Milland as Freddie Nesbitt (James Wilby)
Else Lanchester as Mabel Nesbitt (Claudie Blakely)
James Cagney as Henry Denton (Ryan Phillippe)
Charles Laughton as Inspector T----- (Stephen Fry)

Downstairs
Maureen O'Sullivan as Mary Maceachran (Kelly Macdonald)
Robert Donat as Robert Parks (Clive Owen)
Ethel Barrymore as Jane Wilson (Helen Mirren)
Edna May Oliver as Lizzie Croft (Eileen Atkins)
Jean Harlow as Elsie (Emily Watson)
Boris Karloff as Mr. Jennings (Alan Bates)
Edmund Gwenn as Mr. Probert (Derek Jacobi)
Basil Rathbone as George (Richard E. Grant)

Another thread asked: what if “The Godfather” had been made in the ‘50s? My contribution was:

Vito……………………… Robert Mitchum / Humphrey Bogart
Michael………………….Montgomery Clift
Sonny…………………....Robert Ryan
Fredo…………………….Tony Curtis
Kay……………..…..……Ava Gardner
Hagen……………………Edmund O’Brien
Clemenza...............Rod Steiger
Capt. McCluskey…….…Karl Malden
Jack Woltz……………...Ray Milland
Carlo……………………Lloyd Bridges
Connie…………………. Rita Moreno
Tessio…………………. Millard Mitchell
Sollozzo………………..Richard Widmark

Those were fun and your challenge should be, too. I love any recasting game. I will give it some Deep Thought and get back to you tomorrow.

Maybe not a classic Jamaica Inn 1939 by Daphne De Maurier, it should have been in the style of Wuthering Hights 1939, or Great Expecations 1946. With lots of hunging dark clouds over the moors.

Charles Laughton's character is not a crook in the real novel, so Leslie Banks (or in a modern version maybe William Hurt)

Maureen O'Hara, one can't change perfection.

Robert Newton, seeing him as a hero was odd, weatherbitten but strong, Colin Farrell.

The definitive and exhaustively researched biography of Humphrey Bogart is “Bogart” (great title!). It was begun by A.M. Sperber and, after her death, completed by Eric Lax. It was published in 1997. The authors recount several stories about how Bogie got the scar and slight lisp. One says that his father inflicted it during his childhood, another that he was struck by a flying object during an explosion on board ship during his stint in the Navy. The one about transporting a prisoner they call “the most colorful account” and say that it “was spun by Bogart’s brother-in-law, Stuart Rose.” When Bogart was discharged in 1919, he was given a very thorough physical that identified all his scars, moles, and pockmarks: “his upper lip was unblemished” writes Lax. 5 years later, he was acting as a juvenile lead on Broadway – and drinking and partying hard - when he met Louise Brooks. Brooks later mentioned that she noticed the scar on that occasion but everybody assumed he had been punched in the mouth in some speakeasy fight. Personally, I believe that is the only story that sounds plausible.

As for recastings, between Bogart’s screen triumph in “The Petrified Forest” (1934) and about 1941/42, he toiled in the Warner studio system as a contract player and had to take any part assigned. Although he did get some lead roles (Black Legion, Marked Woman), he was usually 3rd or 4th in line for top billing behind Cagney, Eddie G. Robinson, George Raft, and Pat O’Brien. He many times was cast as the second or third billed male in movies starring these other guys. I would recast Humphrey DeForest Bogart in any lead roles he lost to either Raft or O’Brien.

I was afraid you were going to ask that, but a little cogitating brings these examples to mind:

Pat O’Brien is romancing Ann Sheridan when he gets the job as Yard Boss at the eponymous California penal institution in “San Quentin” (1937). Bogart is Sheridan’s criminal brother who is confined at that same location. Bogart could have easily handled the lead role, even with his limited range George Raft could have played the brother, and Pat O’Brien could have been shopped to another studio.

“They Drive By Night” (1940) could have been improved if Raft and Bogie had switched roles or, better yet, Raft had been left off the film altogether.

  Every time I see a scene from Gone With the Wind featuring Vivien Leigh simpering her way through her role as Scarlett O'Hara, I can't help but think of at least two actresses who could have played the part much better: 

   1. Ida Lupino--only about 20 when the film was being made, but then Scarlett was very young at the beginning of the story, too. Lupino had such an intense movie persona that she could make men's flesh creep, even while attracting them at the same time. She might have frightened General Sherman
on his way through Atlanta. It would be easy to see her stealing her sister's beau, as Scarlett does in the film, with her mixture of appeal and that sinister
undertone of "better-do-as-I-say-or-else" quality that she had. She also had the teeny-tiny waist that Scarlett did, too. 

  2. Hedy Lamarr--at the time, probably the most beautiful woman in Hollywood, and possibly at the  top of the all-time list, too (maybe Elizabeth Taylor would be her only competition). She might have had to work on her accent a little, but she could certainly have handled the intensity of the role. If Scarlett
is supposed to have men all over the South drooling after her, it would help if her looks were a little more striking than those of the other actresses that appear in the film; Leigh doesn't really stand out from the others.

Robert Mitchum in the John Wayne role in The Quiet Man.

Dan Duryea as Johnny Nolan in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. He fit the description of the father in the novel--just the right look of haggard boyishness, plus his knack for playing charming weaklings.

A young Clint Eastwood reportedly begged for the role of Charles Lindbergh in The Spirit of St. Louis, but apparently the studio felt that he wasn't a big enough name for the starring role. So they went with a more established actor, James Stewart;
they solved the problem of his being too old for the part by gluing a blond forelock to his receding hairline. In retrospect, it might have been a breakout role for Eastwood.

I haven't much facility for this sort of thing, but there was a time when I thought William Holden would have been an improvement over Gary Merrill as Bill Sampson in All About Eve. Not only did I feel Merrill was one of the weaker cast members, but imagine: playing opposite four of the five actresses nominated for best performance in a single year. 

I've come to reevaluate Merrill's work more favorably of late. It's only in a couple of scenes - the "Listen, Junior, and learn.
 Do you want to know what the theatre is?" speech, for instance - or with dialogue like "the barroom, Benzedrine standards of this megalomaniac society" that he seems overemphatic or out of his depth. Overall, though, it's really rather a nice performance.

So...never mind. 

Indeed. He did play screenwriters twice (Sunset Blvd, Paris When It Sizzles). And I think Davis played no fewer than four actresses (two stage and two screen: Dangerous, AAE, The Star, Whatever Happened To Baby Jane).